LESSON ONE: INTRODUCTION TO REMOTE SENSING

1.1 Introduction
This lesson deals with fundamental concepts of remote sensing. Her, remote sensing is defined as the
collection of data by a device. Which is not in direct contact with the phenomena to be investigated. Other
concepts that are covered by this lesson include types of remote sensing. The definition of satellites,
resolution and multi-concept. The lesson is concluded with advantage and disadvantages of camera and
satellite systems.

1.2 Objectives

By the end of this lesson, learners should be able to:

By the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

a) Define remote sensing.

b) Describe two types of remote sensing.
c) Describe the various types of resolution and multi-concept.
d) Describe satellites.
e) Describe the advantages and disadvantages of
photographic cameras and satellite.

Remote sensing
Remote sensing means feeling, measuring or imaging sensations from near or distant objects, areas and others
through the analysis of data by a device that is not in direct contact with phenomena to be investigated. The
remotely collected data can be of many forms including:

a) Acoustics: A branch of science that deals with sound-reflecting character at an

interval space by recording, reinforcement, hearing, or perceptions of sounds and
hearing aids.
 b) Force of gravity: On of the fundamental forces of nature. The other three being
the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force.
The gravitational force the weakest of the four forces, but it acts over great
distances. Gravity is force of attraction that arises among objects by virtue of their
masses. On earth, gravity is the force of attraction between any object in the
earth’s gravitational field and the earth itself.
c) Seismology: The study of earthquakes, the seismic waves they produce, the
processes that cause them and the effects they have. By examining the global
pattern of waves produced by an earthquake, seismologists can deduce the
nature of materials through which they have passed. This leads to an
understanding of the earth’s internal structure. On smaller scale, artificial
earthquake waves generated by explosions or mechanical vibrators can be used
to search for sub- surface features such as oil or mineral explorations.
d) Radio astronomy: The branch of astronomy that deals with the origin and nature
of emissions from extraterrestrial sources in the radio waves range of the
electromagnetic radiation rather than in the visible range. It is specifically deals
with celestial phenomena through measurement of the characteristics of radio
waves emitted by physical processes occurring in space.
e) Forensic medicine: The use of scientific techniques to solve criminal cases. It is a
multi displinary field embracing chemistry, physics, botany, zoology and medicine
including identification of human bodies or traces. Ballistics the study of
projectiles such as bullets is another traditional forensic field that makes use of
such tools as the comparison microscope and electronic microscope. Traditional
methods such as fingerprinting are still in use. Among other techniques is the
electrostatic document analysis (ESDA), used for revealing the indentations on
paper, which helps in determining if documents have been tampered with.

f) Electromagnetic energy distribution:

Energy rays that are either emitted or reflected as radiation by objects. Satellite sensors collect this

energy, but what the detectors capture is only a small portion of the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

In environmental sciences, remote sensing is understood as the acquisition, recording

processing and classification of data obtained through the use of electromagnetic radiation
sensors. Here, remote sensing is understood as the imaging sensations of the earth’s
atmosphere, land and water surfaces from the outer space. Normally, this space is cloud-
free and has limited air, and therefore the personnel sensing the area below it has to carry
oxygen masks.

It should be stated here at the outset that useful environmental data obtained from
exploitation of acoustic waves, force fields and others from sensors that are not designed
to produce any forms of imagery from their fields of view are excluded from the scope of
this module. However, air photographic interpretation, in which much of the information is
acquired using the electromagnetic energy without actually setting foot on the ground, part
of the general field of remote sensing will form the bulk of the module.

Types of Remote Sensing

Two types of remote sensing are recognized namely: active and passive remote sensing.

a) Active Remote Sensing

This type of remote sensing uses imaging sensors that supply their own source of energy to
illuminate features of interest. Part of this illumination is reflected back to the sensor for
recording. All active sensor systems such as radar operate in the microwave portion of the
electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), namely from about 1 millimeter to 1 meter wavelength
range (lesson 3).

b) Passive Remote Sensing

In passive remote sensing, the sensor system relies upon the naturally available energy normally from the sun. Many

passive sensor systems operate from the visible to the infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, namely

from about 0.25 to 2.3 wavelength bands.

A simple and common example of an active system is a camera used with flash bulbs, it
becomes a passive sensor system.
Satellite

This is the body in space orbiting around a larger body such as the moon that orbits around
the earth. Manmade satellites such as the telecommunication satellite are those put in
orbit around a planet, which relays back to the earth telephone messages or radio and
television (TV) signals received from any part of the earth. It should be noted that a satellite
image is not different from a TV signal (pictures) for the built up and reproduced
electronically from do-like elements called pixels. Since pixels are the smallest item of
information that can be registered by the satellite sensors, it determines the resolution of
the image. In other words, any object size that may be smaller than the pixel of the real
world cannot be detected by the satellite sensors/scanners even if its radiometric and
spectral resolution are greater than the surrounding areas.

Remote sensing satellite use two types of orbits: geostationary and polar. Geostationary
satellites are put into orbit 35,900km directly above the equator. At this altitude the speed
of satellite exactly matches the earth’s rotation. To all intends and purposes. Therefore, the
satellite is geo-stationary-hovering continuously over the same part of the earth.
Consequently, geo-stationary satellite are used either to transmit telecommunications
signal or to get a very broad view of the weather.

Polar orbits, on the other hand, are lower in altitude, 600-1500 km above the earth surface.
in polar orbit, a satellite follows a north-south path close to the poles, and gradually
traverses every part of the earth over a period of days. It then starts the same cycle again,
and since in effect it constantly retraces its steps, it is ideally placed to view and monitor
environmental changes. Some of these changes include seasonal rhythms, for example, or
short-term events (floods, forest fires, pollution and the like) or changes in land-use
patterns in farming and urban areas.
The second generation of American LANDSAT satellites returns to the same point on the
globe every 16 days. The orbits are sun-synchronous, i.e. the satellites across the equator
always at about 9.45 AM local time on the ground below.

1.3.4 Resolution

Resolution is an indication of the sharpness of images or it is the ability of a sensor to show

details of a phenomenon. In other words, it is an expression of the size of the smallest
object that can b e depicted. The term is most commonly associated with the raster data
model where the resolution of a gaster or grid is equal to the size of the cell in the real
world. For example, the resolution of a remotely sensed image may be 10m(meaning each
cell is representing 10mx10m on the ground). Increased resolution leads to larger storage
requirements, increased processing and higher costs for a given area. Many things affect
resolution including pixel counts, format, receiver quality, lenses, and lighting, among
others. The quality of image is measured by the quality of information extractable from it,
which is strongly influenced by three types of resolution namely (ground), radiometric and
spectral.

a) Spatial Resolution

This is the ability of the lens-film-filter combination to image distinctly small details. In
other words, it is the smallest feature that is covered by an instantaneous field of view
(IFOV) and can be seen from any a given altitude. Many IFOVs form the beginning blocks of
imagery.

b) Spectra Resolution

It is the capability of a remote sensing system to picture ground the objects that reflect
light of the different intensities (color). It encompasses the width of the regions of the
electromagnetic spectrum and the number of channels that are sensed. Sometimes
chromatic aberrations may prevent certain light intensities from reaching the sensor
system, and thus preventing important images from being registered. A chromatic
aberration is a defect in an optical image, and every sensor system has some degree of
abberation.

c) Radiometric Resolution

This is the sensitivity of a sensor system to differentiate signal strength.

d) Temporal Resolution
It is defined as the length of time intervals between measurements. It is usually recommended that the data

for temporally resolution be obtained on the same time of the same date for comparative analysis.

1.3.5 Multi-Concept

The re mote sensing specialist uses different definitions that are meant to enhance
resolution, thereby incorporating what is know as the “multi-“ approach: thus the use of
multi-scale, and multi date, among others:

a) Multi-spectral refer to the use of different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum,

and is synonymous with multi-band.
b) Multi-date is the acquisition of data at different moments in time, and is synonymous
with multi-temporal.
c) Multi-scale is the use of remotely sensed data at different scales and hence from
different altitude. The multi-scale approach is imperative when extrapolation of
large-scale photography is used in conjunction with satellite imagery.

d) Multi-polarization refers to the various ways that comprise a beam or an illumination

of energy usually from the sun that can be considered to be vibrating in all sensor
platforms as they travel through the atmosphere and impinge on the earth’s surface.
However, the light that is reflection back into the atmosphere form one kind of
feature on the earth surface such as a body of water may be strongly polarized (that
is, vibrating primarily in the platform) while that reflected back from some other kind
 of feature such as vegetation or fractured rocks may be polarized only slightly, if at
all. Since the polarizing capability of a feature is a clue to its identity, more
information about earth resource features can b obtained from multi-polarization
sensor than from one polarization.

1.4 Advantages and Disadvantages of Cameras and Satellites

The detection and capture of electromagnetic energy can be performed either by
cameras or satellites. The camera system offer mainly advantages that include:

 They are relatively simple in operation.

 They provide a high degree of spatial resolution and geometric integrity. That is, they
have superior resolution capabilities and little rectification is required.
 Minimal space and power are required.
 The equipment’s cost is low.

The disadvantages are:

 The camera systems have a limited range of the spectrum in which they operate,
ranging from UV (0.25) to near infrared (0.9 ).
 They have a problem of operating large amounts of data.

Satellites are electronic sensors that generate an electrical signal that corresponds to the energy in the

original scene. They have the following advantages:

 The information from satellites is in electronic form; therefore, relatively easy to

radio it down to ground receiving stations for reconstruction or reconstitution into
computer generated images.
 They operate in a wider spectral range (UV through infrared and microwave). Unlike
cameras that have one great problem of weather, the satellite circumvents the
problem of weather by ignoring the use of visible and infrared as sources of
information. Since satellites are active systems, they are all-weather system and are
in operation for 24 hour.

Other advantages include:

  They have a practical output, either digital or analog for computer processing.
 Further, they have a greater range in detectors than films in camera,
 They are fast in processing and analyzing of data by computers,
 It is relatively easier to obtain quantitative radiometric data from calibrated scanners,
and
 It is easier to compare data of different scales and wavelength.

Disadvantages:

 Satellites have lower resolution.

 The equipment costs are higher.